Underneath the Surface
by Returned
Summary: A strong willed kunoichi's dedication to her dreams catches the attention of a certain raven haired boy. However, another prodigy has already silently claimed her. NejiTentenSasuke


**Beneath the Surface**

Chapter 1: Their Intentions

_A strong willed kunoichi's dedication to her dreams catches the attention of a certain raven haired boy. However, another prodigy has already silently claimed her._

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It was a pitch black night that carried a calming and silent atmosphere that surrounded the peaceful village. Warm russet eyes darted open correspondingly to the soft shuffle of footsteps.

"You're still here?"

The onyx eyed, raven haired boy quietly stepped into the patient's room and closed the door behind him.

"Hn."

Ever since Konoha's infamous Naruto had succeeded in regaining Sasuke from Orochimaru's clutches, sufficient peace had once again returned to the village. The raven haired boy had reclaimed his sanity and moral compass once again due to one of the blonde fox boy's righteous speeches. However, Sasuke was still seen as a treacherous and feared person who had once betrayed his own people. Therefore, Hokage Tsunade decided to have him lay low for a period of time and restricted him from any significant missions. He was instructed to watch over a certain brunette ninja who had become severely injured during a solo A rank mission, due to Neji and Lee accompanying Naruto's rescue mission. His duty was to make sure she was resting in bed and not causing any excessive stress on her body. However, even Uchiha Sasuke couldn't stop a stubborn Tenten from doing what she wants.

"Just don't get in my way."

She curtly informed him as she inaudibly opened the window next to her hospital bed and leaped out of it. She landed on the cold ground gracefully and proceeded to the bushes where she had hidden her secret stash of weapons since the hospital had confiscated weapons from the patient's room. The weapons mistress lovingly fondled her throwing knives and explosives as if they were her children. She advanced to train with them like she did every night for the last 7 days, although she had been forbidden to do so by her doctor. The raven haired boy crossed his arms as he laid his back against the hospital wall and wordlessly watched the weapons mistress continuously throw her knives into her targets with perfect accuracy.

"You're not half bad."

The startled kunoichi glanced over at the stoic man as slowly forming smile appeared on her face.

"That has got to be the first thing you've said to me this whole week."

His face remained unchanged as his eyes met directly with hers.

She swiftly pulled out a silver kunai from her bag and tossed it towards the Uchiha, aiming at his face. He effortlessly caught the deadly weapon between his middle finger and his index finger, raising his eyebrow in confusion at the kunoichi's sudden provocation. "Wanna battle? I haven't had a proper training partner in a while."

"You're in no condition to battle right now." He examined her body. Her body was noticeably shaking in pain, even more so than it had been last week though she refused to admit it. Her health was deteriorating because of the constant stress she was putting her body under.

"Nonsense, I feel fine." She retorted with confidence, refusing to fall behind her training because of her dream to become a legendary shinobi.

In the blink of an eye, Sasuke had disappeared from the wall and had reoccurred behind her. He made a clean strike at her legs, making sure not to cause too much pain to her injured body. Immediately, she lost her balance and was about to collapse onto the dirt when Sasuke caught her weak figure and carefully placed her onto his shoulders.

"You need to rest. You're hurting your body more than you are getting stronger."

The hardworking shinobi constantly protested as she was carried back to bed on her caretaker's broad shoulders. She defeatedly laid on the hospital bed and gazed at the wall, mentally cursing her obvious injuries.

A loud growling noise came from her stomach as she blushed softly. Her caretaker cocked his eyebrow in amusement.

"Are you hungry?"

"Not at all." She denied and turned her face away from his.

"I just want to become stronger." She replied seriously with a sudden dreamy look in her eyes. The once power-hungry man could understand her desire. He too had his time where he was morbidly obsessed with power because of his yearn to assassinate his brother. It didn't matter where he got his power from, even if he had to sell his soul for it.

"Why?" Instead of standing and leaning his body against the door like he usually did, he decided to actually utilize the chair next to her bed and sat on it. She turned her body towards him and smiled earnestly at him, causing him to become slightly memorized by her. Her reasoning to her dreams were nowhere near his former aspirations.

"My dream is to become a legendary kunoichi. I want to prove that female ninjas can be just as strong as male ones…" She paused and charmingly winked at him. "or even stronger."

Their eyes gazed into one anothers without a single word. Beautiful dark brown eyes aligned perfectly with kind cerulean ones. He felt a flicker in him that hadn't existed until now. She smiled and closed her eyes, halting the moment.

"I guess I should listen to my caretaker every once in a while. Goodnight, Sasuke."

She turned her figure away from him and began to fall into a deep slumber. The cold hearted, former avenger felt a sudden desire that he had never felt before in his life, a desire to want to become closer with another human being.

Three familiar figures made their way through the village and straight to Tsunade-sama's office.

"Hokage-sama, you have a visitor," said one of the guards of Konoha.

"Ah," she turned her chair around to view her visitors and quickly stashed away her lottery ticket. "You three are finally back." She grinned. "Well? How did the A mission go?"

The man clad in green gave her his infamous dazzling smile along with thumbs up.

"No problem, right Lee and Neji?!"

"That's right, Gai-sensei!" responded the energetic bushy browed boy as Neji gave an unenthusiastic nod.

Tsunade flipped through her clutter of paperwork until she finally found the file upon their mission. She quickly read through it and looked at the team in surprise.

"This mission was assigned to you last week and you've already accomplished it? I expected you to finish this mission after at least a couple months. Finding Kuroshi Taku, the wanted murderer whose expertise was in camouflage and transformations couldn't have been so easy." Tsunade spoke with an incredulous tone.

Both Gai-sensei and Lee chuckled with each other and simultaneously glanced over at Neji.

"Well _someone _was in a big rush to get back to Konoha. He pushed us into finishing the mission as quickly as possible. I've barely had any sleep this past week." Gai-sensei explained to the doubting Hokage. "Usually it's Lee being incredibly fired up for a mission too."

Lee quickly averted his eyes to his sensei.

"Sensei! Was I not fiery enough this mission?!" Tears began overly spouting from his cartoon-like eyes.

"No no, Lee! You were plenty fiery. Your burning flames of youth were incredible!"

The two olive dressed men proceeded into a deeply disturbing embrace with imaginary waterfalls and romantic background music.

Neji sighed at the strangeness of his teammates and decided to utilize this chance to take his leave.

"Hokage-sama, may I please be excused?"

"Sure, Neji." Neji turned around and began to make his way out of Tsunade-sama's office when she halted him to add another piece of information. "By the way… She's in room 208."

A smile crept up on the stoic face of the pale eyed, Hyuuga prodigy at the thought of his beloved brunette teammate.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

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**Thank you for taking the time to read my story! It's been about 6 years since I've written a fanfiction and I highly enjoyed it! I will definitely continue this one if I find it deemed worthy. Please show some love and review my story!**


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